Cora Haught saw and felt this contrast between the two men, so opposite in birth, rank, person, manner, character, and cultivation.
Not all at once could she become an apostate to her faith, pledged to Rule. But, in truth, she had always loved him more as a sister loves a dear brother than as a maiden loves her betrothed husband. She had not seen him for three years. And she had seen so much since they had parted! In truth, his image had grown dim in her imagination.
She wrote to him briefly from London that her engagements were so numerous as to preclude the possibility of her writing much, but that at the end of the London season they expected to return home. This was before she had—
"Foregathered with the de'il,"
in the shape of the handsome, eloquent, and fascinating Duke of Cumbervale.
Afterward a strange madness had seized her; a sudden revulsion of feeling, amounting almost to repugnance, against the rugged man of the people who had hewn out his own fortune, and who looked, she thought, more like a backwoodsman than a gentleman. Yes; it was madness—such madness as is sometimes the wreck of families.
The duke grew daily more impressive in his attentions, and Cora more delighted to receive them. So the season went on. People began to connect the names of the Duke of Cumbervale and the beautiful American heiress.
Just about this time old Aaron Rockharrt walked into the breakfast room of their apartments at Langham's with an American newspaper, which had just come by the morning's mail, in his hands.
"Here is news!" he said. "Rothsay has been nominated as governor of ----! But perhaps this is no news to you, Cora. You may have received a letter?" he added, turning to his granddaughter.
"I had a letter from Mr. Rothsay yesterday, but he said nothing on the subject," replied the girl somewhat coldly.